In Recent Memory
by SiriStarkiller
Summary: My initial writings for a romance with Clint and an original character. Roughly follows events in the movie.
1. Chapter 1

**This is an edited version of the first chapter. I hope you enjoy!**

**I'm posting this story to see initial reactions and opinions. If it does well, I will post more.**

**This story roughly straddles the movie, but this initial chapter takes place just before the movie starts.**

She woke up slowly, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. As the dark dresser on the other side of the room finally came into a fuzzy focus, she pulled the sheets back up around her chilled body. As the soft hall light finally reached her eyes, the nerves set in. She glanced over to the clock to read 3:47 am, and anticipation started to grow unwillingly in the pit of her stomach. She could feel her fiancé's arm draped over her hip, so she carefully eased herself onto her side, rolling his arm off of her. She lay enveloped in her own thoughts for a while, facing away from him, and wrapping her arms around herself in an attempt to dull her anxieties. But, her sigh of relief caught in her throat as he shifted next to her and woke up. Regardless of the undesired turn of events, a smile grew across her face as he pulled her backwards, deep into his arms and spoke softly into her ear,

"Whatever happens tomorrow, know that I never could have gotten this far without you. What we have discovered will change everything. Nothing will ever be the same after this."

His soft breath caressing the nape of her neck helped to dissipate some of her tension. He pushed himself up on his elbow to lean over her and she tilted her head up to meet his determined gaze. Slowly, she watched as he faltered for a moment, his face changing into to his adorable look of uncertainty and nervousness.

"I know I'm not very good at this, but…" he started hesitantly and paused. She intervened, rolling over, and flipping him onto his back again. She held herself carefully over him, letting the tips of her hair rest in curls on his bare chest, frowning,

"Stop apologizing."

"Well, I…I love you." He said breathlessly. She smiled again and whispered,

"I know."

Slowly, she leaned down and pressed her lips against his. She eased herself down onto his chest, her bare skin tingling where it met his. His arms snaked up around her, locking her body in place. Carefully, she pulled away from him, pleased by his yearning expression, and with a light tug, rolled out of his arms and back down onto her side to face him as sleep slowly drifted over her once more,

"I love you too, now get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow."

* * *

Julia pushed her glasses up her nose again, blinking harshly as she pushed back that distant memory. It never took much to trigger one of her vivid memories, a familiar smell, a light touch, this time the trigger spawned from the anticipation of being on the brink of a new discovery. Even though several years had passed since that night, Julia had to remind herself once more that she had moved on. As she continued her work, getting closer and closer to their goal, she could feel her hair falling out of her ponytail to brush against the backs of her ears and the sides of her face. But there was no time to fix that, she had a very pressing deadline and she always needed to be completely focused. Director Nick Fury was rather specific when he gave the research team their goals. The Tesseract's power must be harnessed for safe and immediate use. Everything had to be kept top secret, under wraps, and for the team's eyes only. They worked furiously and almost around the clock, even though breaks were often encouraged and always turned down; everyone ate their meals at their stations.

Not surprisingly, Fury soon assigned an assassin to their underground lab deep in the desert, to keep a vigilant watch over their progress. The scientists just accepted the Agent's presence as a perk of working for S.H.I.E.L.D. Julia suspected the Agent was put there for her, just after Fury had finally cleared her for interaction with other S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel, but Fury did leave a cryptic message in an attempt to ease her suspicions. Julia didn't believe it for a second. The agent was introduced to the team as Agent Clint Barton, codenamed "Hawkeye," and he kept his nest somewhere high above all of the scientific equipment in the corner of the room. She barely saw anything more than glimpses of him and that was enough to drive her insane. Once, a blur of black fabric, another time she managed to see the back of his head, but sometimes she would glance up at the catwalk and see the faint outline out his body barely separating from the shadows. Part of Julia wanted to climb up to his perch to see the lab from his lofty perspective, but she knew she would never get away with it.

Clint was already positioned up on the catwalks when Fury introduced him to everyone. He usually stayed up out of sight and preferred it that way; he could see the lab best from his elevated vantage point. Referring to the dossiers Fury had supplied him with, Clint went to work comparing the scientists below him to their pictures and started learning their roles in relation to the layout of the lab as efficiently as possible.

He took a special note of one scientist, a Dr. Julia Connors. She was a tall, thin, woman with wavy red hair that settled down around her mid back. She was in her mid 30s and had a very strange dossier. Clint made a mental note of her relation to the head scientist of the unit, Dr. Eric Selvig. He was her uncle on her mother's side. Her mother was deceased and her father was currently a genetic scientist working in New York. Other than her family relation, schooling, and various degrees in physics, chemistry, and molecular biology, the dossier was strangely barren. She lived under her uncle's guardianship for most of her younger years, and seemed to be estranged from her father. The dossier was filled with only a few vague accounts of her movements in the several years before her assignment to this underground facility. Something was being covered up. Since the dossier bore the S.H.I.E.L.D. seal, Clint was very aware that Director Fury would know exactly what was being pushed to the side. One family relation was not enough to earn a place in this organization; she had to have some unknown skill set.

He observed her the longest of any scientist. He was not encouraged to engage with any members of the team, other than Dr. Erik Selvig, for any reason other than an emergency. So, Clint kept his scrutiny of her as short as he could bear. He found her very striking from afar and he had to suppress an urge to climb down from his catwalks to see her up close, in the hope of gaining some insight on her mysterious dossier, but orders were orders. He finally tucked her into the back of his mind and continued to survey the rest of the cavernous room.

Some progress was being made with the Tesseract, but just as soon as things were going well, things took a sudden turn for the worse.

Something clicked in Julia's head, the algorithm actually worked. She ran up to Dr. Selvig with a smile on her face,

"Dr. Selvig, I may have something." He looked over her results and his mouth opened in surprise at his niece,

"Incredible. Help me run some tests with this, good work Julia."

"Let me run the diagnostic first." Dr. Selvig nodded at her with a proud smile and started pouring over her new findings.

Julia walked up to the Tesseract in its containment field. It was her turn to run the afternoon diagnostic scans on the device. She held the scanner over it and never let her eyes leave the readouts pouring across the screen; everything checked out as always. Typing her observations as she walked away from the Tesseract, something made her stop and turn back to the pulsating blue cube. A faint blue sphere formed around the Tesseract and started to expand, slowly at first, but as it started to gain momentum it began to hum. Julia called out,

"Erik!"

Dr. Selvig looked up at her startled tone of voice and started walking quickly in Julia's direction, picking up speed as he saw the growing sphere. He waved his arms at her and yelled out,

"Julia, get down!" She was already turning away from the cube and just as she started to let herself fall, the Tesseract released a shockwave of energy, slamming into her, adding momentum to her fall, and forcing her towards the ground. Julia felt her head whip into the stone floor and pinpoints of light flashed across her eyes, but her focus was elsewhere as a familiar surge of energy rose from within her and a red hue began to creep around the edges of her sight. She nervously took in a deep breath as Dr. Selvig reached her and helped her off of the floor. Just as Julia started to think she was in the clear, she started shaking softly and she moaned as her skin started to itch. Julia kept her head down as she took in more deep breaths to steady herself. Dr. Selvig looked down at her and frowned, fearing the worst. When Julia finally looked up from Selvig's supporting embrace, she saw his face turn grim and she knew that she was losing control over herself again, years after her last unconditioned mental failure. Absentmindedly, she realized that Agent Barton was standing before them. She drank in his features for only a moment until her uncle whisked her away from Barton's piercing gaze. Selvig started yelling out commands to the team while he helped Julia out of the lab,

"Shut the power down, now! Start evacuating the entire compound, and get Director Fury on the line!" The team jumped into action and darkness flooded the lab. The Tesseract glowed in its stand, caressing everything near it with a soft blue light. The blue light intensified for only a moment before the power flickered back on in the lab. A tech yelled out to Selvig,

"Power is back on in the entire compound Dr. the Tesseract seems to be powering everything itself and everything around it."

Dr. Selvig cursed under his breath and continued to help Julia out of the lab. He paused just inside a hallway and leaned Julia up against a wall with one hand on her trembling shoulder. He glanced at her red hair and cursed again as he saw white spreading very slowly from her scalp. Dr. Selvig grabbed her chin and checked her eyes again before accepting the truth. Then he asked Julia a question to which he already knew the answer,

"Are you ok Julia? Can you handle yourself?"

She nodded quickly in denial, but as Agent Barton came into view her neck arced strangely for a moment and pain tore across her face. She tried to move away from her uncle, but he held her fast. Agent Barton fixed his curious gaze on Julia as he spoke to Dr. Selvig,

"What is going on Dr.? The Tesseract looks secure for the moment, but we need you to stay here." Dr. Selvig quickly pulled Julia off of the wall and hurried down the hall, simultaneously shielding Julia from Agent Barton's view, and talking loudly over his shoulder,

"I'll only be a minute Agent, go back to the lab and make sure no one starts to panic."

Agent Barton started back to the lab, glancing back at Dr. Selvig and Julia. He frowned at the way she was shaking, and he could have sworn that her hair was changing color from red to an obvious shade of white. His eyes had never failed him, but he made himself continue into the lab and start calming down some of the more rattled scientists.

Erik had laid Julia out in the middle of her secure room and was already walking away from her shaking body. Automatically, she curled herself into a fetal position in a self-comforting gesture. He walked out the doorway and started pulling the thick metal door shut. Just before he could close it all of the way he spoke to her,

"Julia, I'll be back in a little while to check on you. I'm so sorry I can't stay."

"Go," she croaked, and she smiled up at Erik in a feral way that made him shiver. Then she turned her head and waved her trembling hand at him absentmindedly as he continued to shut the door. Dr. Selvig watched her for a moment through the small glass window as she finally stopped resisting the change. White cascaded down the length of her hair, her body started to change its shape, and she opened her mouth to scream, but he couldn't hear it through the soundproofing. He lowered his head gloomily, took a deep breath, and reached up to close the thick metal cover over the sliver of glass. He locked the deadbolts and was once more grateful for the precautions Fury had put in place. He pushed the keys deep into his pocket and hurried back to the lab.

Erik Selvig reappeared in the bustling lab and walked up to the scientist holding a phone rather nervously and as far away from himself as he could manage. Erik took it and brought Director Fury up to speed.

Agent Barton saw Dr. Selvig return to the lab flustered and without Julia. After Selvig took the phone, Clint slipped unnoticed back down the hall and started scanning the windows set into most of the doors, listened for any indication that she could be inside of one of the rooms. Walking faster and faster, Clint could find no trace of Julia until he turned the corner and a giant metal door, covered with high tech padlocks and biometric scanners, loomed in front of him. A strange feeling told him that Julia was behind that door, and he almost didn't want to know why. Clint stared at the door for a long moment and suddenly turned on his heel and walked back towards the lab. He had to see her. He couldn't explain the urge he had to see her shining silver eyes again.

**Please review! If there is something that doesn't make sense, please let me know!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Here is the next chapter!**

**I have been skimming the Avengers for reference, but errors can still occur. Please review and/or message me to let me know. But as a warning: At some points of my story, I will be altering the timeline here and there. I'll try to make it clear when I do change things.**

**To push this chapter out, there may also be some grammar issues and discontinuity, so please stick with me as I sort them out!**

Every muscle in Julia's body groaned in protest as she picked herself up off of the floor to lean on her hands and knees. She had woken up about ten minutes before, but she had decided to lie on the floor, not just to regain her strength, but to regain some of her sanity as well. Losing control, like she did, had not happened in years. She had always been able to control herself, but neither had she been thrown headfirst into a concrete floor by a blue alien cube in the last few years either. As she was lying there, her thoughts went inevitably back to the day that changed everything.

The only sound she could hear was of her blood pulsing through her body. It increased in tempo, speeding faster and faster with every passing second. Her vision was tinged red, giving the lab around her a dull rusty hue. The pain that gripped her body was so intense she was almost numb to the world around her. Seconds felt like hours and after a few had passed, some sound leaked into her ears, her vision retained its rusty hue, but at least the pain had stopped.

A scream echoed across the lab and her head instinctively whipped up towards the sound. The speed of her reflexes surprised her. Julia paused to assess her condition and that was when she realized what she had become. Physically, she was horrified to see the horrendous thing in the place of where her body had been, completely normal, only seconds before. Her thoughts, her movements, were all more swift and accurate. All she could feel was anger, but this anger was not what she was used to. It was amplified and distorted to make her crave violence and blood.

Julia could smell the blood before she saw it. The scream had been produced by their lab assistant. She had been hit by several shards of glass from the explosion and was bleeding profusely. On an impulse, Julia raced towards the assistant and swiped her arm in front of her, silencing the assistant permanently with her new claws. Julia's conscious had rebooted too little too late as she stared, horrified, at the mess she had made. She frantically looked around the lab for her fiancé before she lost herself to instinct again. His still form across the lab made her heart lurch and she screamed hopelessly.

Surprisingly, he started to move and Julia fell to her knees in horror as she felt herself letting go. Her body stood up and started to walk over towards his, and she couldn't do anything to stop herself.

Julia was already positioned next to a wall, so she used it to help steady her legs. There was a metallic taste in her mouth, and her sleeve came away stained with blood as she wiped it; she must have bitten her tongue in her mindless fury. As Julia leaned up against the wall, she catalogued the bruises and aches that racked her body. There were some obviously new and shiny scars covering her arms and legs where they extended past her tattered lab coat and skirt. A few of the deeper wounds were nearly healed over, making her skin itch as they continued to knit together. She was confident they would be gone in the next thirty minutes based on past experience. She worked her way around the room until she reached the ledge that she could sit on.

She dropped down onto the hard ledge and put her head in her hands. Julia couldn't recall anything that had happened after she saw Agent Barton standing in front of her in the lab. It wasn't normal for her to forget anything after she had changed, but she could only assume it was a result of her losing control. Then she realized that she had seen Agent Barton up close. A sad smile played at her lips and she closed her eyes to recreate the image of his face. She couldn't deny the qualities that made him very attractive.

Several more minutes passed and Julia finally felt back to normal. She stood up, stretched her back, took a deep breath, and began to tap her finger against her thigh as she waited for her uncle to show up and let her out of her cage.

Erik grumbled under his breath as he hurried down the hall. He had wanted to go back and check on Julia over fifteen minutes ago. But every time he had tried to leave the lab, someone was grabbing his arm or shouting his name. He rushed down the hallway as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Erik leaned into a room and took out a fresh outfit for his niece to wear, odds were, she had torn the one she was wearing into shreds.

He flipped up the metal flap to see what state Julia was in, and sighed openly when it revealed her, completely human, and standing in the middle of the room. He replaced the cover and started to methodically unlock the door.

When he opened it, Julia walked right out of the room smiling politely at him as if nothing had ever happened. Erik smiled back, but he knew both his and her smiles were facades. This thing that happened to his niece shook him to the core. He knew it bothered her too, but she claimed to have gotten over the initial trauma. Sometimes he would catch her staring into space with a distant look on her face. All of the years that he had raised her, he had never seen her aloof. She was always an extremely happy child and she was often the one who comforted him if something were to go wrong.

She thanked him for the clothes and immediately walked into a nearby room to change. Erik hesitated, but he knew Julia wouldn't talk about what happened, so he went back to the lab.

Julia closed the door behind her and instantly started taking off her tattered clothing. She shed her lab jacket and paused to trace the bloody rips in the normally flawless white fabric. She continued slipping out of the rest of her clothes and shocked herself by suddenly hissing instinctively at the door. Someone was walking down the hall, and she was only in her underwear. She could hear his soft footsteps with her exceptional hearing. With a gait that careful, Julia could only guess it was Agent Barton. He must have noticed her disappearance and was probably following Fury's orders to restrain her or take her out of play in some other manner.

Now leaning against a wall, Julia held her breath, not knowing if the Agent had any enhanced hearing like herself. His footsteps passed so she dressed as quickly as she could, throwing the ruined garments into a biohazard container. She slipped out the door and walked right into Agent Barton.

Julia was somewhat surprised that he had tricked her like that, but she acted much more flustered than she actually was. She let her arms fly up and drop a pair of glasses onto her nose, shaking them the whole way up.

"Oh!" She exclaimed, "I was just…excuse me Agent!" Agent Barton smirked and Julia's resolve hardened.

"Now, this is interesting. Where have you been for the past two and a half hours Ms…Connors, is it?"

"Dr. Connors, mind you." Julia snapped, she knew he wasn't buying the innocent act. She swiftly stepped around him and was irked to see the smirk on his face grow to become a huge grin. She was starting to hate him for looking so cute.

"Your hair is red again, Dr. Connors, unless that was just a trick of the light." Julia whirled around, her curls flying, and almost slammed into Agent Barton's solidly muscled chest once more. It took more willpower than she realized to look up from it; she was a woman after all.

"Yes Agent. The fluorescent lighting in these halls can be quite blinding."

Barton's smile grew at the harshness Julia used to say his title. He spoke in a flat voice,

"I was just going to say the same of you."

"Do you think you can talk me like that and get away with it?"

"Ooh, now the claws come out," he said sarcastically. Julia blinked at the blind irony in his remark, and Clint noticed the discrepancy in her behavior. He continued much more politely, feeling more than a little bad at how he just talked to her. He had never been this upfront to a woman before, she just drove him insane with all of this mystery. He really hated secrets.

"We need you back in the lab Dr. Please, Director Fury should be arriving soon, and he will be waiting to debrief you. You are the most pertinent witness we have."

Julia stared at him blankly, letting silence stretch out between them. Suddenly, she turned on her heel and walked back into the lab with Clint on her heels.

As Erik placated Agent Maria Hill once more, he was starting to get very aggravated. He had already informed Fury of his niece's incident and he was dreading telling Fury the details after he arrived. Maria had been informed about Julia's current state from Fury himself and she was grilling Erik for the breach in the chain of protocol. Finally, she was forced to turn to answer a call and Erik took a deep relaxing breath behind her back. Mid breath, she whipped back around and he was caught off guard causing the frown on her face deepen even further.

"Director Fury's chopper is nearing the premises," she said briskly, "Prepare Dr. Connors for her debriefing."

Hill strode away from Erik, up the stairs, and out of sight. Then he finally allowed himself a look around the lab. The Tesseract seemed to be behaving as it was before all of this mess started. It made him uneasy. The power that it would take to fuel the entire compound, above and below ground, never even dimmed the cube's eternal blue light.

Erik looked around for his niece, and found her back at her station working almost a little too diligently. He walked over to her and filled her in on the night's excitement. She nodded through most of it and her eyes lit up wearily when he mentioned Director Fury's imminent arrival. He patted her twice on the shoulder and walked away.

Clint climbed back up to the catwalks, waiting for his boss to arrive. He had been thinking about the Tesseract and Julia incessantly. He ran through the facts, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. These alien things didn't belong here, all they could bring was strange and uncertain things of which S.H.I.E.L.D. would not be prepared to battle. But then his thoughts switched back to Julia.

He had wanted another look at her shining silver eyes. But when he saw her minutes before, her eyes were a pretty shade of aqua. That was the second time he had doubted his eyes today, and as far as he was concerned, these were the only two times he had ever doubted them in the entirety of his life. Julia constantly vexed him, and he couldn't shake her.

The compound was evacuating, just in case the Tesseract decided to blow. But he had to and wanted to stay for more than just his duty. He could hear his radio squawking, so he tilted his head towards it and heard Fury's voice ring out. Clint waited patiently, and Fury appeared, walking down the staircase in all of his eye-patched glory. Fury walked up to Dr. Selvig and Clint could hear his name being mentioned. He jumped into action and slid down the nearby rope and walked up to the Director.

As Clint offered his theory on how doors open both ways, the Tesseract almost seemed to respond to this as it whirred into action. Blue waves of what looked like electricity forced their way towards the platform on the other side of the room. The light intensified, vibrating the whole underground lab with its force. A dark shape started to form where the light met the platform and suddenly the light died in wisps of blue and what was left started to rise up into the massive vaulted ceiling. But no one was looking up.

A man was crouched on the floor, holding a strange staff. His dark-haired head tilted up, wearing an unsettling mischievous grin under his blackened eyes. After being told to stand down, his smile grew as he used the staff to disperse the armed guards around him, including Clint. Then he launched himself into the air, landing on a guard, and impaling him with the sharp end of his staff. Clint scrambled to his feet as the man walked towards him. He looked around frantically for a moment to find Julia. But he had to focus on the man standing in front of him.

Clint caught his name as Loki when Dr. Selvig blurted it out from across the lab and mentioned his brother Thor. Clint remembered Thor from the hammer business from Arizona and groaned inwardly as he realized they were dealing with Gods again. As Clint started to raise his gun, Loki turned towards him and held the curved tip of his staff on his chest, just over his heart. Loki's dark eyes seemed to immobilize him as Loki's rich voice rang out,

"You have heart."

That was all Clint heard before Loki pushed the tip of the spear to connect with Clint's chest. He felt a strange sensation, a burning that crept through his body like the tendrils of a searching vine. Loki was his master now, Clint couldn't explain it, but he felt devoted to Loki. He fought for only a moment, but was quickly overwhelmed by Loki's commands. Clint felt himself drifting away as he mutely holstered his gun. He remained conscious enough to see Loki take Dr. Selvig and Julia and a faint emotion drifted around his thoughts. He had failed Julia. He had let her be taken by his new master. Clint barely formed that last thought in his mind before his autopilot clicked on and everything went blissfully dark.

**Please review! And while you wait for a new chapter, check out my completed Terra Nova story!**


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